Disney Kingdoms Comics: Seekers of the Weird

We’ve seen how Disney has been incorporating Marvel into their world, whether it’s in the theme parks and cruise ships or teaming up with Phineas and Ferb to save the world, but now it’s time to see how Marvel incorporates Disney into their world.

The Disney Kingdoms brand of comics launched this week with Seekers of the Kingdom #1. The first issue sets the stage as siblings, Max and Melody Keeps discover that there is more to their family than their parents have been letting on, including their adventurous Uncle Roland and a secret entrance to a strange place called the Museum of the Weird.

“Museum of the Weird” sound familiar? It’s the name of a walk through attraction that Walt wanted to build in connection with the haunted mansion and it was based on ideas by Rolly Crump.

This first issue, while full of action and weirdness, serves to set up the rest of the story, introducing us to the heroes and villains as well as something called a Coffin Clock, which the resident baddies wants to get their hands on.

I was a little worried when I heard that the Disney Kingdoms brand is written for a younger audience than the “normal” comic book audience. I’ve seen kids’ comics and they are, in general, not impressive. Fortunately, I think it seeks to appeal to the same audience that enjoys the Marvel cartoons on Disney XD.

The story is good. The art is good. The characters are fun. Overall, I think this is a really good way for Disney to enter the world of comics. And I love that there are Imagineers in the credits as consultants, it definitely gives the story a more legitimate feel.

I will be interested to see what stories follow this one. In some ways, they got off easy this time. Nobody has any preconceived notions as to what the Museum of the Weird is suppose to be, but what about attractions that actually were built?

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One thought on “Disney Kingdoms Comics: Seekers of the Weird”

Great point about Museum of the Weird being a good starting off point because no one really knows what it was supposed to be like.

I really enjoyed this book (though I am not usually a comic book reader, so I don’t really have a gauge on what a quality comic book is), and I loved seeing glimpses of some of Rolly Crumps original artwork used in the story.

My new dream is for Disneyland to finally use some of these concepts to develop a Museum of the weird ride in New Orleans Square somewhere. It would be great if they could merge the idea with Mystic Manor and finally give that park the trackless ride system it deserves in a cool way like this.

I’m really excited to see where “Seekers of the Weird’s” story goes and I’m just as excited to see what other Kingdoms stories they can come up with. Pirates would be a pretty obvious choice, but perhaps overdone at this point.

I think they could probably come up with some pretty good stories for some of their rides that don’t have clear stories or characters attached already. Some ideas:
-Big Thunder Mountain
-Jungle Cruise
-Space Mountain (or Tomorrowland as a whole?)
-Submarines
-Journey Through Inner Space

They could even go further into the archives and use some more unused attaction concepts (Discovery Bay, anyone?) to create stories out of.

And I’ve only scratched the surface with Disneyland concepts. They could even make stories out of attractions from DCA, Animal Kingdom, Epcot, etc…